


The Project

by Are_you_ever_not_going_to_fall_for_that



Series: Holiday [16]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action, Drama, Family, Nanites, Part of the holiday series, Technology, Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4814423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Are_you_ever_not_going_to_fall_for_that/pseuds/Are_you_ever_not_going_to_fall_for_that
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor visits Loki at his workplace. Part of the Holiday Series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Avengers.
> 
> Part of the Holiday Series. Takes place after Lunch. This is going to be a bit of a long one which is why it's going to be in chapters rather than just a one or two-shot. I'll be posting every 1 to 3 days for a little bit unless I get really behind.

Numbers. Numbers had never been his favourite things to pore over for long hours, at least not in this context. He hadn't minded, for years it hadn't bothered him, but the longer he spent looking at these numbers the more they started to bore him. No, the numbers didn't bore him, he was just tired, and working long hours always did that to him.

A quick glance at the clock hanging above his large mahogany desk showed that he still had at least 5 more hours to go until he could quit for the day- or rather night. At least he would soon be switching from the accounting, business running part of his job to the, at least currently, more fun job of working on new inventions, that he would send to R and D to mass produce. He sent them to R and D with detailed specs, of course, including what materials every cord, chip and wire was made of. For a long time it had been hard to figure out which earth materials were similar to Asgardian materials and which replacement were sufficient to replace materials that didn't exist on Earth.

Still, he was going to be stuck doing accounting until it was finished. He didn't look at these numbers often. Most of the accounting was done by their office and the more sensitive information was dealt with by Barry. It was really only the most sensitive information, the ones that Barry couldn't know about, that he dealt with and those usually only took a couple hours every week. The rest of his time was spent in conferences with R and D, other executives, and various companies, along with many other people. He had no more appointments for the day and it was already 6' o'clock, but he knew he would be working until at least midnight, if he was very quick. Normally, he didn't even notice the time going by, but doing the numbers was wearing thin on him and he was glad that he only did this once a week.

"Mr. McMillion," his assistant's voice came through to him, sounding off.

He had two assistants, a daytime assistant, and a night-time one. His night-time assistant's name was Janice. She was a young, strong woman with dreams of eventually running her own company. He was more focused on her voice though than anything else as she sounded hesitant and something else, shocked? Not exactly but it was similar, and it put him on edge.

"Yes Janice?" he asked slightly confused but masking his voice so it didn't show. He wasn't expecting anyone, there was no meeting to get to and there was nothing that he was aware of going on at the moment.

"There's someone here to see you."

Loki frowned as Janice knew that he didn't see anyone outside of the company without an appointment, well except sometimes for Tony. If it was Tony or anyone else that he knew then Janice would have included their name; she knew Loki was a stickler for that sort of thing.

"Who is it?" Not managing to hide his curiosity or annoyance that Janice hadn't included the name when she knew that she was supposed to. He did not like surprises, he had never liked surprises, but especially now with his current circumstances he very much hated surprises. There wasn't a response for a long moment, before finally she replied, voice slightly shaky.

"Um...he's you know…"

Loki blinked as he got up from his desk chair scraping on the old floor. He was done trying to wait for Janice to tell him who was there. Janice seemed flustered, and Janice didn't get flustered all that often. He opened the door to his office, intent on seeing what Janice was having trouble saying. Of course the moment he decided to open it, was the moment that Janice was able to gather her thoughts together.

"It's Thor, the Avenger," Came Janice's voice on the intercom, though at that point it was entirely unnecessary as the Thunderer was standing right beside his assistant's desk, clad in full battle armour.

Loki's jaw tightened in anger; Thor knew he was not supposed to be here. His eyes flickered between the blond and his brunette assistant Janice. She was in her mid-twenties and was wearing a smart black suit, a single sideways glance let him know what he had misjudged what had been wrong with her voice earlier. Awe, awe was what had been in her tone. She was still staring at Thor wide-eyed and it stuck him that she had probably never seen one of the Avengers up close before. She had spoken to Stark before on the phone, on occasion, mostly to set up meetings for the two of them.

His assistant may be feeling awe, but at the moment the only thing Loki was feeling was his anger bubbling. Thor was not supposed to come to his work ever. He had been adamant about that several times and yet Thor had decided to come anyways. Even though he was seething inside he managed to stay in a cordial tone.

"Thor right? The Avenger?" he said like he didn't know the blond in front of him.

Right now he didn't want to know the blond in front of him. In fact, he wanted to throw him through a wall and if he could by some means keep his cover and throw the blond through a wall he would. Unfortunately, Robert McMillan wasn't Asgardian or Jotun and as such he was going to have to resist the urge.

"What can I do for you?" he asked as politely as he could muster.

"Can I talk to you in your office?" Thor said his voice tinged with worry and a hint of urgency.

Loki's anger was tempered slightly by caution; he gestured to room behind him and moved so that Thor could make his way past him. Thor's legs quickly ate up the distance and Loki simply had to close the door for them to be alone. Loki held up a finger before Thor could talk. There were security measures in the room that he had to take care of before they could speak to, or more likely shout at each other. A simple gesture disabled the camera in the room, there were mics in his room too, but those had long ago been disabled, and they were only turned on for meetings that he wanted a record of. Now that the camera was down Loki set off various spells to ensure that they would not be interrupted.

When he was finished Loki turned to the blond scowling the glare that he had been hiding from the receptionist and him till that moment. His hands balled into fists by his sides, and he was just barely able to keep himself from trying to physically or otherwise attacking Thor.

"Thor I was very clear. You are not supposed to be here. You are not supposed to be in my office ever! Especially not in those clothes that pretty much declare that you are an Avenger!" Loki shouted his face felt warm, but that was probably his anger was pumping his blood more rapidly than usual. How could Thor do this to him? Thor looked slightly abashed at his tone but then he straightened himself.

"I am not here for myself. I am here for Tony," Loki frowned not knowing what to make of that and with a slight nod of the head decided to let Thor continue.

"Tony said that there is a problem with one of your combined projects and that he needs your help. He asked me as his friend to come and get Rob as he and I are the only ones that can fly and he had to stay there to try to get the project under control."

"What?" Loki asked trying to think of which project it could be.

They met for a few hours every month and they had a variety of projects in the works. Both GO Technologies and Stark Industries were confused about their friendship and the higher-ups didn't like it, especially since neither company had any intention to merge with the other anytime soon. Both companies thought that the person working for the other company was only in this friendship to steal the others ideas. If the executives of either companies ever found out that they spent hours making items together they would undoubtedly send the executives of both companies to an early grave over the thought of the legal battles of which company the product would be marketed and sold under. That was the reason that no one besides The Avengers, Pepper and Barry knew about their arrangement and while no one except maybe Thor were fond of it, they could keep their mouths shut.

If Tony was asking for his help at his workplace it must have gone seriously wrong. He started making his way to the door, mentally going through the projects in question trying to mentally calculate which would be the worst one to be malfunctioning when Thor spoke.

"You wouldn't even join me for Mother's day, Father's day and you barely spoke to me on the Fourth of July, yet when Tony needs you, you don't even hesitate." Thor's bitter words hit his ears.

Loki turned back around with a sigh.

"Thor you know how I feel about Mother and Father's day and I had something coming out near the fourth of July and they kept sending me things all night. Besides we have lunch 2 times a week," he said. He didn't really have time for the lunches, and for the rest of the week he had a working lunch. On the days they had lunch together he slept 3 hours instead of the usual four but-

"You spend most of our lunches thinking about work!" Thor shouted back.

Loki sighed, okay, yes, some of the time that he and Thor had lunch his mind was still back in the office. But there was always so much to do, and he couldn't just switch his brain off when it was halfway through figuring out something.

"Thor-" Loki started only for Thor to hold up his hand to quiet him despite still seeming upset.

"Robert, Tony seemed very worried, you should probably take care of the problem now. We can talk about this later,"

Robert. His full first name. The name was like a slap to the face, especially since Thor knew that he didn't have to use it because of the spell, that hurt more than he thought that it would. Loki nodded and took the spells away. He went to his intercom and said

"Janice call the car around."

 


	2. Chapter 2

Thor decided not to drive back with him and had flown away as soon as the two of them had hit the pavement. Loki could teleport there, but Robert couldn't so he had to drive and hope that things wouldn't be too bad when he got there. He still had no idea which project of theirs was malfunctioning. It could be any of them despite their combined projects being nothing short of brilliant. He loved the way Tony's mind worked and he loved how seamlessly they seemed to work together. They were working on things that Aesir were too lazy to work on. Asgardians with their longer lifespan seemed quite content to invent things when they got around to it rather than with the fervor Midgardians had. He still sometimes had a hard time believing how much his views of Midgardians had changed over the years. The distance between the two buildings wasn't long but in New York traffic seemed to drag any journey so it seemed much longer than it should.

It was frivolous to obsess over what could have happened when he didn't know which one was malfunctioning so he let his thoughts drift back to Thor. Thor was angry at him, no he was hurt, Loki corrected himself before he shoved that thought away. First he would tackle the project problem then he would try to figure out if he wanted to do anything about Thor or not. He really wished he could teleport to the tower, but there was something he could do rather than just sit there in traffic, even though he was only a few blocks away now. He dialled Stark and his face came on the screen that projected from his phone. He wasn't looking at him but at something else off screen.

"So tall, blond and handsome told you?" Loki nodded even though he probably didn't have to.

"First time you met an Avenger huh?" he said with a smirk, as if he expected his meeting with Thor to have left him star-struck "-besides me" he amended with a nod.

Loki smiled always ready to try to take the arrogant, cocky man down a peg.

"He was much smarter and more entertaining than the other Avengers I've met." Loki paused for a second mulling that statement over in his head and decided that he would have said it and in the exact same way no matter what Avenger it had been. It had nothing to do with the fact that it was Thor.

"So you took the project home?" he asked crossing his arms as he remembered that Thor had told him to come to the tower rather than their normal workplace, that was supposed to be neutral ground.

Stark just shrugged.

"I had an idea, wanted to try it out, meant to ask, kind of forgot," he finished with a shrug of his shoulders and his eyes appeared to be scanning for something.

"What project?" Loki asked getting serious.

"The nanites,"

Loki blinked.

The nanites? They were trying to use the nanites to construct new limbs for people who had lost limbs using their own DNA. As far as he knew the nanites, last time he had seen them, didn't do anything, they didn't work. The last time he had checked neither of them had been all that eager to work on the project. There was a lot of things they would have to do to market it, they would have had to convince and talk to people of the medical profession and try to get it approved for use. They were both more technological guys and less medically inclined. Guys, how did that word creep into his vocabulary?

"What, why were you working on the nanites?" he demanded.

"I figured it was the project that you'd be the least likely to notice went missing," Tony said glibly, like he wasn't ashamed of the fact that he had broken one of their few rules. Loki was furious about this breach, but tossed it aside to deal with later after he knew what the problem was and how to fix it.

"What did you do to them?" Loki asked instead, lips thinning in annoyance, not at all pleased with how this day was going.

"I tried to get them to work and I thought that I did but really," Stark paused and winced a little bit which did not help at all, "I think I might have gotten it backwards," he said slightly chagrined .

"What are they doing Stark?" he demanded not liking the other man's tone.

"You're pissed aren't you?" The man said looking even more abashed. "You called me Stark, you haven't called me Stark in awhile."

"Stark!" Loki shouted trying to get him back on point.

"Right!" he said then his view of the room started to move again.

"You know how we wanted the nanites to scan the healthy version of the person's whatever and then rebuild it or a mirror image of it where ever we needed. Well… it scanned just fine, or at least what I assumed was just fine. However rebuilding didn't work so well... it decided instead to destroy any kind of skin it can touch. Like piranhas, but piranhas that are too tiny to see without 100 times magnification. The good news is that it doesn't destroy anything that isn't flesh based. The bad news is that it there is nothing left of any of the lab rats," he said with a look of disgust on his face.

"I had to put the others in the hulk cage to protect them while the two of us deal with this. Bruce would probably be able to help as this stuff is right in his wheelhouse, but if those nanites start chewing on him we'll have a Hulk in the place and that would only make a bad situation even worse."

Loki didn't disagree. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of his last trip to the Avenger's tower despite it having happened years ago, it felt like a lifetime ago. He had wanted to destroy all of them the last time he had been there and now he was friends with Tony, Barry and speaking to Thor again. Loki had absolutely no idea how he had gotten from point A to point B. Rather than trying to retrace the past he thought of what Tony had just done felt the anger bubble up inside him again.

"Let me get this straight you lied to me, screwed up and now you want me help to fix it?"

"Yep," Tony said popping the p just as the car came to a stop before the Avenger tower.

Loki hadn't been inside the tower since it had been redone after...after well he had trashed it and thrown Tony out the window the first time around. He supposed that he owed it to Tony to help him out as he had thrown Tony out his own window. He would help him even if Tony had no idea why.

Sighing, he opened the door of the car, stepping out into the cooling evening air. "I'll be up in a moment."


	3. Chapter 3

Loki had not been back in the tower since his attack on Tony, but even then his visit had only really included one room. He strolled into the lobby of the building and saw a front desk. He had forgotten that Tony lived in the top floors of his business. Loki didn’t. He didn’t live far from his building, but he didn’t want to spend all his time in one building. There was no one at the desk. Probably because if what Tony said about the Nanites were true - and he had no reason to think that it wasn’t, he probably excused all the employees that were left in the building. Nanites that could pulverize a human weren’t exactly safe. He idly wondered how many times Stark’s employees had been excused because of similar problems. He supposed it didn’t really matter and instead hit the button for the elevator. The elevator was either remarkably quick or was already waiting for him because the door opened right up. The moment he was in the doors closed and started rising.

 

  “Jarvis?” he asked as he hadn’t touched anything. He may not have been to the tower, but he was familiar with Jarvis. Tony had built Jarvis into their workplace some time ago; apparently he couldn’t work without the AI.

 

  “Sir, asked me to bring you to him. Also, there is a suit that you should put on when you get to the top.  Your skin is too exposed to the nanites as it is now,” Loki nodded.

 

It was a good precaution, albeit unnecessary.  He had put a spell on his skin that would fry any Nanites that tried to touch his skin. But as Tony was unaware of his magic, having something on the outside of his skin to keep them away was important. He wouldn’t have to explain why the Nanites weren’t affecting him.

 

The doors opened again remarkably quickly.  He spotted the suit he was supposed to put on as it was layed out on the floor in front of him. It was an iron man suit in a plastic box. This suit , unlike the other suits that were red and gold and polished beyond perfection, this one looked, well half-finished to say the least. The outside shell was done, but it had wires sticking out of odd places. Loki frowned. an iron man suit, wasn’t going to fit him. He was taller than Tony...only he didn’t remember seeing this suit before. Although, it wasn’t like he seen all of Tony’s suits, after all he had never been inside the Stark's lab, though Loki had been asked if he wanted to see it more than once. It was just something he hadn’t wanted to do,  It wasn’t exactly on his list of priorities to be around the entire team that had taken him down before,  even if it had been years ago. Still this one was longer and looked like it would be too big on Tony.

 

  “Did Tony…?” he trailed off not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

 

  “That suit was made for you,” Jarvis answered before relapsing back into silence, not giving any more information.

 

“I recommend putting the suit on as soon as you can,”

 

Loki nodded and picked up the suit. He saw that the suit had interlocking parts and was still a little warm. Tony must have made it that same day right before Loki‘s arrival. Loki made his way to the box and after a glance lifted it up. The lightweight plastic easily lifted up and he placed it right next to the suit. Loki unlocked the sections of the suit before he placed them on his body and relocked all the sections. He felt around the suit looking for any breaks, but it was locked so securely he was sure that the nanites wouldn't get in unless they decided to burrow through the metal of his suit. He had never worn a suit like this before, but his Asgardian armour had been mostly crafted of leather and metal so it wasn't terribly uncomfortable, even if it was a little stuffy.

 

“The suit has no defensive or offensive capabilities,” Jarvis' voice came in his ear.  Loki nodded now sure that Tony had made it for him that day in response to their newest threat.

 

“Where is he?” Loki asked wanting to get out of the tower as soon as possible.

 

While this place looked almost unrecognisable from his last visit, he really didn’t want to be in the same place as his defeat, even if he was no longer interested in the idea of taking over Midgard anymore.   

 

“Mr Stark is currently trying to locate the Nanites and is currently in the lab down the hall on the left,” Jarvis informed him and Loki nodded.

 

As he started walking, he noticed that the suit was slightly on the heavy side. Fighting or running in it wouldn't work very well, but that wasn’t really the purpose of the suit. The suit was simply to protect his skin from the Nanites. Even if it it was unnecessary with the magic coating his skin. He scanned his surroundings as he walked, trying to find the Nanites even though they were too small to be seen by the naked eye...then again his eyes weren’t exactly normal by the human standards.

 

“Jarvis does this suit have magnifying capabilities?” he knew most of Tony’s did, but he didn’t know if Tony had enough time to implement them in this suit.

 

“Yes, however sir had to rush, so the magnifying capabilities of the suit are most likely limited,” Loki nodded before a glint of the somewhat familiar red and gold iron man suit flashed at the edges of his vision.  He didn’t like this at all. He never saw the iron man suit when he was Rob, only when he was Loki.  It felt like his two carefully constructed worlds were colliding.  He was glad that he was wearing a mask so that Stark couldn’t see his face.

 

“Rob,” he heard as Tony turned towards him.

 

“How mad are you?” He asked slightly hesitantly then added “ I had to play with them, you get that don’t you?”  

 

“One might think that one might exercise a bit of caution when playing with such things,” Loki replied icily.   

 

“I was trying to help people!” He shouted, but Loki just raised an eyebrow.

 

Despite the fact that Tony couldn’t see his eyebrows through the mask apparently the genius could guessed his bemusement right because he quickly amended “They were Nanites!” he said with a hint of whine in his voice “I couldn’t resist,”

 

Loki didn’t say anything.

 

“Fine, we can talk about this later, we should find those Nanites before they get out of the tower. I don’t really think they’re going to leave the tower. They're programmed only for flesh, so they shouldn’t be trying to eat through anything that isn’t flesh. But it’s possible that they might eat through something not fleshy in order to get something more fleshy, depending on how adaptive their programming is.”

 

“How flexible did you make their program ?” Last Loki remembered they hadn’t been programmed at all when the two of them had worked on it before.

 

“I’m not 100% sure. I don’t think I programmed them to think like that, but you know,” he trailed off.

 

Loki knew that Tony was implying that he may have made them more adaptive than intended. Fantastic, still these suits should be strong and thick enough to stop the little Nanites from getting through. He really wished he could use his magic he would be able to round up the little Nanites in mere minutes. Who knew how long it was going to take them to do it without?

 

“Magnification as far as it will go,” Loki said to Jarvis who complied.

 

Jarvis was right it wasn’t the greatest magnification ever, but he could see better than he had been able to before and he had good eyes.

 

“Zoom out,” he said when he didn’t see any Nanites in his immediate vision. Tony swiped the projected screen to the left and his eyes scanned it.  It took mere moments for Loki to realize that they were now looking at the code that Tony had programmed into the Nanites.  

 

“I’m trying to figure out what section of code is off,” Tony said even though Loki didn’t need that explained.

 

He looked as well, it didn’t take long before he found a section of the code that was off, but Tony sped past it obviously not recognizing it for what it was. He opened his mouth to tell him only for him to pick other small bits of codes that were off, he paused and just let Tony scan through it. He now realized how big of a problem it was. It wasn't a line or couple of lines of codes that were causing the problem, it was several lines that were only slightly off. He paused and let Tony run through more lines before he realized that it would take hours to fix it this way. He would also have to do more of the correcting as Tony didn’t seem to realize most of the mistakes he had made. He wasn’t completely oblivious as he paused at several sections, seeming to realize something was off, but not exactly sure what it was or how to fix it. Or, perhaps, he was trying to puzzle it out but the answer weren’t coming to him. Loki’s thoughts traveled back to his interactions with the man and now that he was thinking about it he noticed that Tony’s voice had a gravelly quality to it.   

 

“How many hours has it been since you’ve slept?” he asked voicing his suspicion.

 

“Uh, 30 hours...50 at the most.” Tony said distractly as he kept scanning the projection. Loki rolled his eyes, that explained it. Tony when he was wrapped up in a project tended to forget about things like sleep or eating. He drank plenty either alcohol or caffeinated beverages. He said that night is when he thought best and when day rolled around he wasn’t finished yet. Usually the man’s brilliance made up for any errors that exhaustion could cause but eventually even brilliant men eventually had to sleep.  

 

  “This is going to take too long,” Loki said aloud after a long moment and Stark after a few seconds reluctantly nodded his agreement.

 

“Any other ideas?” Stark asked. Loki looked around the room that they were in scanning for anything that he could use. Some of the machines he was unfamiliar with, but most he at least recognized. Nothing in the steel environment was giving him any ideas so far.  He wished he could use his magic, this would be over relatively quickly if he could, but Stark would not likely take the revelation well. There had to be a way to stop them. Maybe he was thinking too much about this, too much about what they were supposed to be and not actually about what they actually were which were tiny little robots. Tiny little robots that Stark had accidentally programmed to try to devour people but still robots.

 

“Stark, I think we’re looking at this the wrong way,” Stark turned away from the code to look at him “If we were in The Warehouse what would we be doing now?” Loki asked and saw as the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place.

 

“EMP,” Stark stated and Loki could practically see the cogs turning in his head.

 

“I don’t suppose you have one lying around?” Loki asking scathingly as an isolated EMP Room was one of the first things they had built in their warehouse in case things like this ever happened. Stark winced at that but turned back around and flipped the screen to another page.

 

“What are you doing?” Loki asked annoyed.

 

  “I don’t have an EMP room because of Jarvis,” Stark said not that that really answered his question, but Stark didn’t elaborate. However after a few seconds it became clear as Stark was looking at the schematics of his tower.

 

  “You’re going to build one?” Loki asked slightly incredulously.  It had taken weeks to build the one in their warehouse.

 

  “Obviously, it won’t be as good as the one in The Warehouse, but I think between the two of us we can rustle up a temporary one just long enough to power those little robots down.”

 

  “One that you can isolate away from Jarvis?” Loki asked knowing how much Tony liked his AI and would never intentionally do anything to harm the AI.

 

Tony nodded though he wasn’t focusing on him but on the screen. As Loki knew little about the present day tower he knew he just had to wait until Tony was ready for him.

 

He didn’t like waiting. Not here. Not in the tower with nothing to do. His mind kept going back to that day those many years ago. The taunting remarks thrown between the two of them followed by him throwing one of his few friends out a window. Then the Hulk…

  “I found the room,” Tony said after a an agonizingly long silence and Loki found himself very grateful. Tony starting moving away from the screen gathering up equipment in his arms. After he piled several items into his arms he moved away from the room, Loki following only a step or two behind him.

  “If the others weren’t in the Hulk Cage that would be the ideal room for all this,” Tony said and Loki nodded even though Tony was looking at him. They went back into the hallway and to the elevator. 

  “The stuff on this floor is too delicate. If the EMP doesn’t work the way that it supposed to everything will be gone,” Tony explained needlessly as Loki had surmised that as soon as they had gotten to the elevator. “If this works I’m probably going to get lots of tiny holes in my ceilings and floors,” he groused as the elevator started to descend.

“I think you can afford it,” Loki replied with a slight smile.

Now that they were actually doing something, rather than sitting around he felt more energized and ready to face this. He used to have adventures like this all the time. When he had become Robert, hazardous ventures had become a lot less frequent. He had been in more battles and had more adventures recently. Thor and Tony kept getting themselves into trouble and Loki had to get them out of it. Still, he had grown up a warrior, even if not many had found him to a respectable, formidable warrior.  Without trying he found himself slipping back in the  mind-set of a hunter. As they made their way down a similar hallway Tony started to stumble, probably due to the weight of the equipment in his hands. Loki took the top half of the stuff in Tony’s hands and turned away before Tony could make some comment about it. Tony thankfully decided against saying anything and just continued on his way. A few minutes later they walked into a rather plain room. The walls and floor were washed a plain white, bare of any furniture.  As soon as they walked in the door Tony deposited everything he had on the ground. After a moment, Loki did the same as well even though the weight didn’t bother him. Loki’s scanned the items that Tony brought again before he looked sidelong at his friend.

 

“Are you going to be alert enough for this?” Tony nodded his head several times.

 

“I’m so amped up on adrenaline. I doubt I’ll be going to bed even when it’s all over,” Loki nodded.

 

 “Let’s do this.”


	4. Chapter 4

It took four hours to build the setup for the room and if Loki was perfectly honest it was still quite shoddy. They were only going to have one shot at this and if they missed...well then someone would probably die.

 

“So how are we going to lure them in?” Tony asked the question that neither of them had gotten around to voicing yet.

 

Loki had an idea, unfortunately, it was very dangerous.

 

“We need bait,” Loki said regretfully.

 

Tony sighed but after a moment nodded. Eyes locked on their shoddiest creation rather than at him.

 

“We need something to lure them to the room,” Loki continued although he wasn’t quite sure why, he was pretty sure that Tony knew what he was suggesting.

 

“All the lab rats are gone,” Tony diverted. Loki realized that they were both beating around the bush, neither of them willing to actually say it, they were hoping for the other to say it.

 

“There’s no other pets?” Loki asked.  Tony shook his head.

 

“There’s nothing else?” Loki asked getting the same answer.

 

“No, there’s nothing else.”

 

“It’s going to have to one of us,” Loki stated as he knew that Tony would never endanger his friends.  They had also already taken four hours to make this room, they didn’t have time to get someone else, nor did anyone else have a suit.

 

“I’ll do it,” Tony said slowly but with determination. “It’s my fault that they’re here anyways,”

 

Loki hesitated.

 

Due to his magic he was unlikely to be hurt by the Nanites, but, he couldn't tell Tony about his magic. Still, was he going to let his friend, one of the few ones he had fly into unnecessary danger to protect his secret? But he would surely lose said friend if the truth were to come out.

 

“Are you sure?” Loki asked still not sure how he felt about it.

 

“I’m the one with a suit that can fly.”

 

“Not after the EMP,” Loki countered. The moment the EMP switch was thrown Stark’s suit  would be useless.

 

“So when I tell you, you open the door and the second I close the door you throw the switch.”

 

“And until then? The only way you’re going to lure them is if your skin is exposed.

 

“How about partially exposed? I take off my face plate they get a look at my beautiful eyes and my ravishing skin," he said cockily and slightly flirtatiously in the way that really annoyed him, "they come, they tell their little friends about the nummy meal and then we do our thing,” Loki could only think of the numerous things that were bound to go wrong with that plan.

 

“And what happens when they start gnawing on your face?” Loki said doubtful of this plan.

 

“There’s a new feature in this suit I want to try. I built it in because...well I could.” Tony said his face lighting up with excitement the way it always did when he talked about his inventions.  

Despite his dire mood Loki felt himself cracking a half-smile, that smile of Stark’s was infectious.

 

“It’s an energy shield. It’s supposed to engage and protect my body for a little while if someone like Loki comes again and my suit takes a battering." Loki's smile died instantly as the reminder. However, Tony didn’t seem to notice and kept talking.

 

“If I’m hovering a few inches off the ground when the Nanites come-”

 

“ How will we know when they’re all here?” Loki interrupted.

 

“I don’t know," Tony admitted "I’ll just have to wait as long as I can and when I can’t wait anymore…” Tony trailed off.

 

Loki should be the one doing it, only there was no reason he could think of that would sway Tony to allow him to do it without him tell the truth. If he told him the truth he doubted that Tony would be willing to work with him on this problem or on any future projects. No matter how bad this plan was and how likely it was to fail, it was the only plan that the two of them could scrape together with his secret intact. Still, guilt bubbled in his stomach over the fact he was risking Tony’s life over this. Images of Tony being eaten flashed before his eyes. He wouldn’t allow that he decided. If the Nanites started to eat Tony then he would break the Robert illusion and save his friend.

 

“This is a terrible plan.” he said, but Tony heard it for what it was, an agreement to go along with it. Tony smiled his I’m-so-ready-for-this smile.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Avengers
> 
> So sorry I meant to have this one out much sooner than this. The good news is that the next one should be up tomorrow.

Loki could see Tony's faceplate wasn't up yet, he was probably preparing himself for what was about to happen and all Loki could do was watch his friend being thrust into danger from a screen. His friend's life was in danger and he was going to be watching the whole thing on a screen on the outside of the room that it was happening in. He knew that he had to because he had to open the door at the right time, but still he couldn't remember the last time he had felt so useless. In mere moments, Tony was going to have Nanites swarming all over him, of the two of them Tony was the only one that could actually get hurt. If it wasn't for Jarvis Loki would've just got rid of them now before they posed a threat to Tony, but with Jarvis constantly watching him he couldn't.

However, perhaps he could still do something without alerting Jarvis. If he did anything big he knew Jarvis would be able to detect his magic energy signature, however, something small could remain unnoticed. As he watched Tony make a few last moment preparations he kept half an eye on the brunette while focusing the rest of his mind elsewhere.

He was easily able to detect the life energy signature of Tony and what he was pretty sure was the Hulk - the gamma radiation had its own particular signature that was hard to mistake for anything else. Thor wasn't in the building; apparently he hadn't come back after their...talk together. He ignored it again.

There were two energy signatures that were mostly unfamiliar but distinctly human. There was also a similar energy signature not far away from the other two, only it was brighter than the human signatures. The two were likely Hawkeye and the Widow and the other was likely Captain America, the serum colouring his energy signature to set him apart from the others.

There was no other life force signature in the building, but there were pinpricks of lights that were vaguely similar, dozens of them. It was easy to surmise that these were the Nanites. He could help his friend without him knowing it. When Tony gave the signal he would use his magic to make sure that even if the network connecting them wasn't working, he could let the Nanites know where to go. It would hopefully also let him know when the last Nanite crossed the threshold into the room.

This plan of Tony's had so many holes. His friend probably would have come up with a better plan if he wasn't so exhausted. Movement caught his eyes and he retreated slightly from the energy signatures of the Nanites. Tony flew up off the ground a good four feet in the middle of the empty room. After he hovered for a good minute he put his thumb up, simultaneously lifting his faceplate.

Right. It was time. He used his magic to nudge the creatures towards the room while he looked anxiously at the man in the suit who appeared to be scanning the room.

"Anything yet?" Loki asked even though he knew that none of the Nanites had made their way yet.

"No, not that I can see." Loki nodded as he felt the Nanites inching closer; he winced as he felt the first one breach the barrier into Tony's room.

After that, it was like a flood. The Nanites kept flowing into the room until even Tony noticed.

"They're here," Tony said in a strange way that distantly reminded of some movie.

There was still about five dozen that hadn't quite made their way into the room, but they were nearing the room. This might work. This could actually work.

Of course that was when things started going wrong. A hole the size of a pinprick started appearing in Tony's armoured leg. He used his magic to watch as the Nanites started to climb the walls were jumping. A few of them had apparently managed to jump from the wall onto Tony. The hole in the armour was getting larger, but there were still about 3 dozen Nanites who hadn't made their way into the room. He wasn't sure if Tony noticed the Nanites, but he knew that he would soon notice when they started tearing into his leg.

There was still about 3 dozen left. If Stark left now there would still be three dozen nanites running around. It didn't sound like such a bad thing except that they had found their way through the armour. If they did share a neural link then they were going to go after the other Avengers in the glass cage. Thor and Tony would be devastated at the loss of the two spies and The Hulk would again make his presence known. Though long before they would attempt to devour the hulk the Nanites would converge on him and Stark. He wouldn't be affected , unfortunately the same could not be said for Stark.

There was nothing for it. He couldn't allow it to happen. He was going to have to do something unless he wanted Tony to die. Damn him. For a moment, he readied himself to shift back into his own form or rather the form he had grown most accustomed to. Damn the consequences, damn that Stark would never speak to him again and would likely take this as some plot against him. Loki suspected the brunette's relaxed stance on Loki's whereabouts would likely come to an end as well. If he did this his life as he knew it would be over...or would it?

There was another way. It would take quite a bit of energy, not to mention a lot of convincing on his part, but he was fairly sure that it would work….as long as he could maintain his concentration. There was nothing for it, he had to act now before he was forced to watch Tony die before his eyes.

He closed his eyes, blocking out everything...not exactly an easy feat as Stark apparently noticed the Nanites and had started yelling. He hoped that Tony just noticed them eating through his suit and that they weren't screams of pain. Loki then released an energy wave. It wasn't an EMP. With everything else he was attempting to do he didn't have enough energy for one. Instead he let loose an energy wave that acted similar to an EMP, temporarily shutting down electronically based things for a few seconds. A few seconds was long enough for what he needed. Jarvis's surveillance system for the moment was down and he took that opportunity to do one of the most difficult spells.

Creating an illusion of himself wasn't hard. He could practically do so in his sleep. Jarvis has sensors and if Loki suddenly lost the little amount of heat he had then it would look suspicious. There were also dozens of other things a body had that an illusion didn't and Loki couldn't assume that Jarvis couldn't figure it out. Unfortunately, that meant creating an entire body. Creating an entire actual physical body was no small feat of magic. He could change his form but creating a whole new one required so much more, not to mention for the spell he was considering required so much more concentration.

He had no time to time about the qualms. No time to think about how his magic teacher had always warned against the spell. If something happened to one of his halves when he put himself back together again he would feel it. However, the most dangerous part of it was if one part of him died leaving him in a half state. From what he heard a half state was worse than being dead.

It probably wouldn't matter; it should only be for a few minutes' tops. He teleported out of the suit. If he hadn't already been coated in magic with the nanites being directed towards the other room he would be in deep trouble. This next part he had read would not be pleasant.

He groaned deeply as he felt his insides twisting in a way that made him want to scream. Groaning was the most he allowed himself to do as he heard harsh grinding of bones against bones along with the soft squishing of tearing muscle sounds. His eyes were shut tight and he was focused on just riding out the sensation and the waves of pain. Thankfully, the process took only a few seconds. When the sounds and the pain ceased he opened his eyes to look at... himself.

They were both in the form he was more accustomed to, his Aesir form. He was accustomed to looking at himself like this, though usually it was only an illusion rather than his own self split into two bodies. It was a very bizarre sensation. Illusions were just projections of himself, but the two of them were separate yet the same. If he chose they could act independent of the other but at the same time be aware of what the other was doing. Still, anything done in this form required more concentration than normal.

The two halves scanned each other for a moment but spared no more time as the screaming was still echoing from the other room. His two halves nodded to each other before one of them shifted to the familiar form of Robert and teleported back into the armour. He could feel the energy it took, but he was more focused on what he had to do next.

Loki winced, but couldn't put it off longer than that. He summoned a metal staff and hit his other half hard across the head. As he watched his body fall to the floor he winced - that was really going to hurt when he put himself back together, he could already feel a dull echo of it now.

Loki teleported into the room and saw that the nanites were starting to dig into his friend's leg. Loki smiled, he was no longer hindered by being the human that he was supposed to be. He wrapped his arms around Tony and teleported them back to the other room releasing Tony the moment they landed.

He sprung forwards and hit the button to set off the EMP. Dozens of Nanites sputtered and the light that lit them up went out. There were still various other bots, he called the remaining nanites to him rather than Tony. He waited until they crawled into the room and then atomized them one by one. Atomizing was one of the most exhausting forms of magic. When he was done, he would be lucky if he was able to do a simple illusion, particularly with the headache he was likely to have. As he atomized each one he felt more and more exhausted, he also noticed that Stark seemed to have noticed his new location and seemed quite bewildered by the change.

"Loki-"

"Silence," he interrupted tersely too tired to think of lies but knowing that the man had questions that he couldn't answer truthfully. His energy was waning severely but there was still a couple of nanites left and he couldn't stop before they were all gone. A single one would most likely tear through Tony.

"But-" he paused and hissed in pain before continuing "Why are you here?" Tony was hurt, but at the moment he couldn't spare him a thought. There was only two more to get rid of then he could rest. Perhaps for a year, maybe two. With quite a bit of effort, he atomized the second to last one leaving him with only one left.

He found himself stumbling due to the raw amount of magic he was using. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he had used so much energy in one go. He fell to his knees as his legs suddenly decided against supporting him. He could feel eyes on him but didn't look.

There was only one more. He focused on the last one and focused on ending its existence. It was difficult, but he managed in the end. He was drained physically and magically, yet he had a few more feats of magic to perform. He stumbled shakily onto his feet and lurched forward unsteadily for a few steps. He had to put himself back together before he fell asleep. Bad things happened to those who fell asleep in such a state.

Stark was in the room, which would complicate things a bit. He turned to look at the man with a great deal of effort. Tony was staring at him warily but also with a hint of gratitude in his eyes, which were also wide with surprise. Loki eyed his friend. Tony's faceplate was up, but the most noticeable feature on the man was the large hole in the man's left leg armour. In the hole, there was a sizable wound, but it would eventually heal. Maybe that would teach the man to be more careful with the things he meddled in. Some part of him doubted that, though.

"Thor owes me," he said hoping that he was subtly implying that Thor had sent for him.

That and the statement he had just spoken were far from true. If anything involving Thor in his lie would only strain things even more between the two of them.

He faded away while simultaneously making an illusion that made it look like he teleported away. He silenced his breath, his body snapping into hunting mode lying still enough that even animals scared by the smallest of noises couldn't notice him. He had never liked hunting, but that didn't mean that he wasn't good at it. The two of them were only a few feet away, but Tony didn't seem to notice his presence. The genius was still staring at the spot that he had 'teleported' from. There was something about Tony's expression that made him frown, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why.

But he was fading quickly and he had to blend himself back together. He walked as quietly as he could to the hard metal suit that contained his other self. He grabbed his other selves hand and focused.

Pain flashed through his head and he knew that the pain he was feeling was sadly self-inflicted. The exhaustion and the pain combined overpowered him and he faded into the black.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Avengers
> 
> I think for the first time I'm actually updating when I said I would.

"Thank you." Loki bit back the grin that threatened to curl his lips as Thor shot up from his rumpled blankets and scanned the room looking rather alarmed. He knew that laughing now would not help their already fracturing...whatever this was. He managed to keep his amusement to himself. When Thor's eyes honed in on his location he saw them narrow and the big blonde folded his arms defensively over his chest. He looked less formidable in his cotton pyjamas then he normally did. He didn't ask any questions just glared at him so Loki moved to the explanation part.

"This is a dream," Loki clarified, "only it's not really a dream, it's just taking place where dreams do. It's a way we can talk without anyone listening in." Meaning Jarvis. It wouldn't do for the machine to listen into this conversation especially since he didn't want anyone or anything listening into this particular conversation.

"Thank you," Loki said again. Thor's glare only slightly lessened in ferocity. Loki had given Tony the impression that Thor had asked for 'Loki's' help.

There were some things he had planned to do but sadly hadn't gotten around to it as he was barely able to put himself back together on time. One of those was telling Thor about the deception he had sprung. Thankfully from what he had gathered after waking much later with a raging headache was that when Tony had asked Thor about it Thor had at least eventually apparently figured out what Loki had been going for and had gone along with it. That was what he was thanking him for, if Thor hadn't caught on or hadn't gone along with it then everything would have been ruined. Though he could see by Thor's expression that the blond wasn't happy about it. Thor had never been very comfortable with lying, strangely enough lying had never really bothered him before as long as he could come up with a good reason for it. He was going to have to give Thor something, something that would make up for everything. Unfortunately something physical wasn't likely to cut it. Loki swallowed harshly as he really didn't want to do this, he hated things like this and that he was even willing to think about it, let alone bring it up, he swallowed down the bad taste in his mouth and focused on the blond who was making his way out of bed to stand on the hardwood floors of the bedroom.

He had never been in Thor's room, or rather Thor's dream projection of the room. That wasn't really important he was just putting off doing what he had come to do, Thor's eyes were narrowing more and the longer he stood there the more suspicious he was becoming.

"It's hard," he finally blurted out, and now the anger in Thor's eyes were joined with confusion as his statement required elaboration.

"Sometimes," he qualified his statement even though he still hadn't said anything that Thor could understand. Thor looked even more confused. Loki sighed not entirely sure why he was putting himself through this.

"Loki-"

"Please don't speak, this is hard enough as it is." some of the anger flared back into Thor's eyes but Loki paid it little attention.

"It's hard," he repeated, barely noticing that he had started to pace up and down on the hardwood floor. "We've known each other for a long time."

Thor lifted his eyebrows at that statement but stayed miraculously silent. Loki didn't really know how to continue speaking, it was a rare feeling indeed, what with his nickname of silvertongue.

"Over a thousand years." he added wincing as he remembered again what it was that differentiated the two of them. It was the reason why he didn't want to talk about it. It had been years since he had found out but it still hurt whenever he thought about it.

"It's-" he said before cutting himself off abruptly and looking down at the wood floor. He couldn't say it; he would have to say something else, something honest that would hopefully be enough.

"It's not that I don't want to be around you." although sometimes his presence around holiday seasons made it more difficult. "It's just sometimes I can't look at you without remembering…" Loki trailed off not sure if he could go any further into that but at the same time not sure if he had said enough. "Our pasts are so intertwined and-"

"Loki it's okay." Thor interrupted and Loki looked up to see the blond's eyes were watering. Loki felt his own eyes sting before he put a stop to it.

"I can't say I understand everything you do, but I'm not angry anymore. I know you work a lot, I don't know why you feel like you have to do it alone but I'm sure that you know. I know that this is a slow process for you and I know sometimes I might want to go faster than you're comfortable with. I don't need to see you every holiday; I just need to know that it means something to you."

"Of course it means something to me," Loki said automatically then blinked as he realized what he said, aloud, to Thor.

Thor blinked as well but then smiled broadly.

"That's all I needed to know."

* * *

Tony moved the video back again to the start again, staring at the screen as he watched it happen for the tenth time. It hadn't changed since the last time he had watched it, no matter how much he wished that it would. He put it back again and watched the bright green flash which signified when Loki had taken out the cameras in the entire building. The cameras had only been down for a few seconds, during which the camera lens was engulfed in a green glowing flash across the screen right before the appearance of Loki. The first thing he did as soon as he appeared on camera was slam his metal staff roughly into Rob's head. This was the part he kept watching over and over again.

Loki grimaced as he hit Rob. It wasn't the kind of grimace one might have if they were exerting energy to hit someone hard like he had thought might be the case the first couple of times around. The grimace on his face was more like a hint of regret. There was something so wrong about that look on Loki's face when he was hitting Rob. Loki was a psychopath who didn't care about anyone but him and Thor. Why would Loki have that expression on his face while hitting Rob? Why did Thor seem so clueless when he had first asked The Thunderer about contacting Loki. For a moment Thor had seemed like he had no idea what he was talking about. Of course moments later the confusion was gone making him wonder whether or not it had ever really been there in the first place.

There was something buried just beyond the surface and he knew that all he had to do was scratch at it a little bit to get the whole thing to unravel. The only problem was the sick feeling in his stomach that told him he didn't want to know the truth, he didn't want to know the reason. He paused the video, this time on Loki's expression. His grimace, the reason was in his grasp...only he didn't want it. It was rare for Tony to know something was off and to want to leave it alone. He loved a good mystery and really any puzzle that took his mind a bit of figuring out. It's what made him a good scientist; wanting to make the unknown known. This was not like him, this reticence...yet he didn't want to unravel this mystery, at least not right now.

"Jarvis close the program."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you're enjoying this series and would like it continue.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think :)


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